All posts for the month September, 2012

They went to a swim meet outside of Tikrit where Saddam’s old palace was, and you know the war was starting to wind down a bit, so they figured it was safe.

So they started the races. The first race was between an Al Quaeda guy, and Big Bird.

Well, the AQ guy really wanted to show how he was better, and he won the race.
and Big Bird, well, not a very good swimmer, so they called up the local base, and those guys came out with a crane and a really big net, and hauled Big Bird back in from the water.

The soldier said “hey, be careful, guys. The crane’s expensive to operate, and we have to get permission from Congress every time we use the thing.”

So then, the second race, was a militiaman from Basra, and he raced Ernie. Now, the militiaman was tight with the IRGC, and so he really wanted to stick it to the US, and he swam really fast.
Ernie? Well, let’s face it. Muppets just ain’t real good at swimming.
So they went to the base, and got the crane, and used the net to haul Ernie in from out of the water.
So… you know, this was bad.
And the last race, since this was so embarrassing, was Bert. And they put him up against a Kurd, because the Kurdish guy was sorta sympathetic, and appreciated that the Muppets had come so far to do a friendly competition.

But Bert was a TERRIBLE swimmer.
The Kurd had no choice but to go and win the race, because it was just getting so embarrassing that he couldn’t lose even if it bounced off the bottom every length.
So, Bert was out in the water…. and starting to drown.
So the soldiers went to the base, but when they came back…. no crane.
And Bert drowned.

So Ernie got up in the soldier’s grill, and said “you rescued Big Bird, and you rescued me, why wouldn’t you rescue my friend?”
But the soldier shrugged, and said, “I’m sorry, Ernie, but the Democrats won the election, and Congress won’t let us give ANYTHING to haul a Bert in.”

It’s a Brave New World, and Your Parents and Grandparents are ill-equipped to handle it.

The Baby-Boom generation [Edit: speaking *specifically* of the American experience], and particularly the first half of them, enjoyed two incredible advantages as they came of age. First, as a large demographic, they got a LOT of attention paid to them, because society had to change in order to deal with them. Schools had to expand, the job world changed, the whole nine yards. Second, the early Boomers came of age at a time when most of the free world’s civilian infrastructure had been bombed to bits. In the 40s and 50s, and to a certain extent even into the 60s, the US was the only really large producer of high-quality durable consumer goods.

The latter point is important — you could earn a solid middle-class lifestyle as a semi-skilled laborer, because the big-businesses for which they worked were the only games in town. Unions could demand salaries for high-school grads which would seem obscene if expressed in today’s dollars, because competition was minimal, and businesses were able to simply roll those costs over to the customer. Big unions? Massive government bureacracies? Pensions which are lavish by modern standards? All readily affordable in a world where a guy can graduate from high school and be making the equivalent of seventy grand a year by the time he’s old enough to drink.

Well, the world’s changed, and that means trouble. The Boomers are still the biggest age cohort out there, but they’re retiring now — or trying to retire. Meantime, the world has recovered, healed, and even grown economically. On the global scale, that’s awesome — poverty sucks, especially the sort of “half your kids are physically stunted from malnutrition” kind. On the other hand, that means that almost the entire life experience the Boomers have occurred during a time which was a historical aberration (basic prosperity wasn’t unusual in the US – by 1954, US GDP had clawed its way all the way back to what folks HAD enjoyed in 1928), and for the most part, telling somebody “your life experience is almost completely irrelevant to my world, and means nothing” is a bitter pill to swallow and generally gets you looked at funny.

But it’s true, and you need to understand it, because mindsets change slowly. The largest demographic cohort in America is going to tend to make economic and political decisions which are, quite frankly, absolutely necessary from their point of view while simultaneously incredibly destructive from yours.

Generation-X has screamed about this sort of thing for years. But the Gen-Xers, myself included, were lucky. They’re politically irrelevant (too few voters), but economically, aren’t suffering anything even remotely similar to what the Milennials face. Gen X thought it would have to pick up the tab for the Boomers, not realizing that they’d try to kick the can all the way down the road towards retirement. They didn’t *quite* make it, though, and you guys are the folks who are left holding the bag.

What’s killing the Boomers?

1. No Savings: They should have saved — fiscal conditions for the Boomers were about as favorable as it’s possible to get, and all the economic factors that existed during their early and middle adulthood meant that even moderate savings could do really well for themselves if they were careful. Stocks presented *fantastic* returns — any blue-collar guy who could get up enough money to get into even a humble suite of CDs or 401Ks (available at any neighborhood bank) could pull off 6-8% yearly returns. Compound that every year, and the “millionare next door” meme was an actual possibility, and even working-class people who were careful could set themselves up to where they could enjoy a solid, basic nest egg. But most Boomers, unfortunately, just didn’t. There are exceptions, but most Boomers have never managed to set aside even ten percent of their income. Pointing this out is not going to make you popular, because it’s a moral failing of the generation, and nobody likes having their dirty laundry waved around (especially the minority of the Boomers who DID save, but got royally screwed in the late 90s, but more about that in a moment). Boomers continue to max out credit cards with abandon, even as they get ready for retirement.
2. Globalization: the world is competitive in a way that most Boomers didn’t even start having to deal with until they were in their 40s. Many of them are unable to handle these changes. Globalization is nothing new: until the trade war that sparked the Great Depression, it was, in fact, absolutely normal. What IS new is the ability of the new kids on the block to take manufacturing recipes and crank out first-class consumer goods. You can’t “start in the mailroom” and work your way up the food chain any more, except in rare circumstances and niche industries — unskilled labor can no longer command even a lower-middle-class salary, and as many Boomers find their skills to no longer be relevant, they’re winding up holding the dirty end of the stick in terms of employment. It’s hard for a worker in his fifties whose skills are stale to get rehired if he wants the kind of salary he earned when his skills were top-notch.
3. The Robots: they change everything. During the late 70s through the early 90s, unions discovered, to their horror, that robots could literally replace thousands of semi-skilled workers. That brings down prices — you can build things with fewer people than you used to be able to. What many white-collar Boomers are now discovering is that robotics, and more importantly, *software,* can replace high-skill blue-collar workers AND white-collar workers, too. A pharmacy tech’s job can now be done by a machine, reliably and safely. Wall-Street guys aren’t safe: software traders (“algos”) can trade in fractions of a second, and unless you get prime-quality feeds, you literally stand no chance in the market. Lawyers? The “discovery” process, wherein huge batches of text are searched for given words and phrases occuring…. sound like something Microsoft could build into Word? Yep. The same AI that let “Watson” kick ass on Jeopardy is exactly the kind of software that makes lawyers’ work less valuable. As many pundits have noted recently, going to law school is no recipe for success, unless you’re really, REALLY sure you’ve got the connections needed to get picked up by a top-tier law firm. And that tends to mean that if you didn’t win the “lucky sperm contest,” and can afford to attend the Ivies without taking on crippling debt, that it’s a fool’s bet.
4. Economic Illiteracy: most Boomers, not wanting to actually save, let themselves be talked into thinking that “investments” were the same thing as “savings.” Don’t take my word for it — mention a 401K, and most of the folks getting ready to retire call that “savings.” I’ve got news for you — it’s not. Neither is a mortgage. These things aren’t money, and can only be converted INTO money if somebody else is on the other side and is willing to buy. There’s a term for this, and it’s called “liquidity risk.” If your stock value crashes to jack, your 401K is suddenly worth a lot less. Housing? Well, houses are nothing but a box that needs maintenance and gets less valuable over time. If nobody’s willing to buy your house, then you can’t convert it into money, can you? Unless you’re willing to sell your house back to the bank in slow-motion (because that’s what a “home equity loan” is).
5. What Nixon Wrought: Nixon took the country off the gold standard, because he and Congress were spending like drunken sailors, and that meant the US’ gold reserves were getting dangerously low. Now, there’s a lot of hyperbole on both sides of this one, but the basic purpose of any “standard” is that it tells you what your dollar is worth. In 1970, a guy could tell you what his salary was in gold — he knew *exactly* what the dollars he was getting paid in were worth. Since 1971, the value of your dollar has deteriorated badly, and the while technology has gotten awesome, most of the big lifestyle gains are in luxury consumer goods. I don’t actually *need* to be a gaming geek — I could play soccer instead. Meanwhile, the cost of living, in terms of food, shelter, and fuel have either stayed the same or gone up, at the same time as your dollars’ ability to buy these things has gone down. That’s why most Boomers could live in families where only one person worked….and why nowadays, unless your zip code is rated “low cost of living,” you can absolutely forget raising a family on one income. There was a short respite during the Reagan years, when the folks running the Fed were scared into more or less “soft-tying” the value of the dollar to that of gold, but after that, it’s been bubble after bubble as both Greenspan and Bernanke have kept interest rates so low that traditional saving is nonsense — the interest rate a savings account will offer you is less than the rate of inflation, so anything you leave sitting in the bank just loses value. (A lot of my Gen-X peers don’t understand this, and don’t tend to realize that they benefitted hugely in the short-term from it, by coming of age in the middle of economic bubbles that made it easy to get a job)

[Edit: “Mrs.J” pointed something out which reminds me that I have to connect the dots on something. Bernanke is desperately holding down interest rates, to preserve housing values… but this strategy HURTS the Boomers just as it helps them, by gutting the value of their fixed-income pensions. So the fact that the Fed (and the ECB, and BOJ, etc etc) keep doing this is not a rosy thing for Boomers’ future.]

Well, that sucks.

Yes, yes it does. What do the Milennials face?

1. Crap employment. All those Boomers who never bothered saving and are now facing the spectre of a “retirement” spent eating cat food are now competing with you for entry-level jobs, any job they can get. And it’s not just Wal-Mart greeters, either. Congratulations, you’re competing not just with other college-age folks, but also with Grandma.
2. Housing costs are nuts. The Boomers bought into the notion that houses are investments, not costs. They want housing to get more expensive forever. Guess who that hits right in the nuts? Yup, the folks who want to buy a house.
3. It’s almost impossible to save. Why is Bernanke keeping interest rates in the toilet? The answer is, *he has to.* The housing market’s bad now, and that’s the only asset most Boomers have. If Bernanke let interest rates go back to something sane, it’d be much more expensive to buy a house, and the value of Boomers’ homes (many of which are “underwater” and now worth less than is owed) would go right into the toilet. That’d be great for Millenials trying to start a family, but it’s “cue the Alpo” for unemployed broke people who are trying to retire. Make no mistake — there are more old people than young people, and old people vote in big numbers. Bernanke and Congress *will* screw over your ability to save and to start a family in order to “protect the housing market.” (Bonus: there’s a decent chance that we’ll get hyperinflation, which is capital-ouch-bad.)

So what can you do about it?
1. Bust Your Ass: Attitude Counts, and Skills are King. Boomers whine about “age discrimination” in hiring, but the simple truth is that many of them price themselves out of the market by not keeping their skillsets sharp, and by picking up the totally *lousy* attitude that once they’ve earned a certain salary, that they’re entitled to earn that salary for the rest of their lives. If you’re going to go head-to-head with folks who have thirty years’ more work experience, one of the best ways to do it is by demonstrating that you’re lean, hungry, and willing to WORK, and work HARD. On the same token, you need skills, and sharp ones, to get that job. It doesn’t have to be expensive white-collar skills, either. Pay attention to employers, not your parents, and be willing to take on jobs where you get dirty for a living. Unskilled labor is back to its historical status as a quick trip to poverty, but high-skilled blue-collar labor can be a very, very smart move.
2. Don’t go into Debt. And if you must, do it very, very carefully. Student loan debt is rigged so it follows you through life no matter what. If you have to take on debt for school or training, don’t do it blind: make sure you’re taking on an amount you can *easily* pay off. And even though the Powers That Be are going to try to keep interest rates low for as long as they can, eventually the music is going to stop, and interest rates are going to have to fly through the roof. When that happens, anybody who has debt which can be interest-rate-adjusted is going to be hurting….bigtime. As a GenX guy, I was able to pay off most of my house by predicting and playing off the current scenario, but it’s dicey and not likely to last further than 2014 or 2015. It might be a play you can get away with, but…. do the math. And always work from the standpoint of Damage-Control Math. Don’t assume things will go your way.
3. Minimize Costs. Prosperity is not about what you earn — it’s about what you KEEP. There’s nothing admirable about a guy with a six-figure salary who’s blowing tons of cash in restaurants and on fancy cars (unless said car is a condition of your salary, which is often the case). Need a car? Buy used. Need a house and are buying? Buy cheap, and bend heaven and earth to pay it off as fast as you can. A 30-year mortgage is for suckers — on average, you wind up paying the entire value of the house back to the bank *as interest.* The less you owe every month, the more flexibility you have, and the better off you’ll be. Every monthly bill you have is a chain tying you to what You’re Doing Now, instead of What You Want to Do.
4. LEARN ECONOMICS. You don’t have to major in it, but know the difference between saving and investing. Know how interest rates work — they always mention it on the news for a reason. If you can learn these things, you can either predict events (accurately!) or else adjust to them as they occur, rather than being one of those folks who gets sideswiped by reality.
5. “Cool” is Stupid; Smart is Sexy. The world is changing, fast. Most people don’t understand what’s happening and why. The 21st Century is going to be *brutal* to the ignorant, and that’s how the world is going to define everybody who thinks they can stop learning once they’re out of school. Don’t be one of those sad sacks who wakes up in their fifties bitter at a world they no longer understand, because they never really did in the first place. If you walk away from this overly-long blog post still convinced that buying a house is a good way to save for retirement, the future is going to have no mercy on you.

Last of All….

Don’t trash-talk the Boomers (too loudly). Yes, you have to understand the demographic and economic circumstances of the Boomers to understand what’s happening today. Generationally, they’re the “big mouse,” and the snake has to change shape as they move through the system….and dear God would we all be better off if, taken as a whole, they’d bothered saving something. But for every Boomer who is as absolutely selfish, unrealistic, and narcissistic as the day is long, there’s a notable contingent, especially among the “late Boomers,” who went to crap schools, had terrible job prospects, ran counter to the ” me me me” trend, busted their asses, did right by their families, tried to save (even if it was mostly 401k), and got wiped out by the Fed’s boom-bust cycles anyway. The Enron, Internet, and Housing busts were *cruel* to those people. They played by the book, as well as anybody understood “the book,” and deserve none of the scorn which so many of their peers have richly earned. Generational Warfare is something the Boomers invented. If that turns around and eventually bites them in the ass, okay, that’s karma — but let’s not perpetuate the stupidity.